


Scraped Soles

by LilyAngorian



Series: A Gangster Always Needs A Nurse [8]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: A PLOT TWIST, Drama, F/M, Fainting, Serious Shit Going Down Now Guys, a car chase, and a confession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 08:17:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11413881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyAngorian/pseuds/LilyAngorian
Summary: This was going to be a conclusion, but then I realised I wasn't done with them. High on emotions this one.





	Scraped Soles

The sunrise was building, red and orange clinging to the fading blue, as the smoke eased in the early morning. Stella had been walking for hours, desperate to escape the city, to taste fresh air. Matron had agreed to giving her a rare day’s leave, having called her in for a meeting the previous day to discuss recent events. It was clear the older woman was trying to work out if there was anything left of Stella to wrestle from the clutches of the Shelby’s. As far as Stella was concerned, that was best left unasked, as she didn’t have a straight answer she could provide. But, after torturous pauses and forced apologies, Matron had seemed to give her the benefit of the doubt and told her to take a day away from the hospital. Stella was finding herself choked by the city, forced in by the streets and the smoke and the sin, and so she agreed. But as she cut a path through the outskirts and out into the countryside, the scenery started to pass without her even noticing. 

It was madness, the whole situation. She had wandered willingly into the darkness, hands outstretched like a child, following his whispers, and yet she was still surprised when things went wrong. Nothing that seemed true before she’d met him had remained so, and now the only choice left to her was to abandon the situation entirely, before it burned her so badly she couldn’t bring herself back from it. 

Stella walked on as though in a dream, eyes unfocused as she stumbled over uneven ground, skirts raising the dust of lesser-travelled roads. She had already been walking for several hours, and the summer heat was crawling over her, but she couldn’t feel the sweat running down her back.

Could she tear herself away from him, truly shut the door and walk away without nagging thoughts latching onto her at night? Another answer she was unable to give and unwilling to commit to. What did she have left if she did? The grey and the acceptable: a job she was once sure she’d die doing, and a family buried in the soil of two different countries. But did she have enough reason to risk shutting the door on everything else in her life? Matron would never accept a scandal, that much had become clear. She’d happily have Shelby protection for the hospital, but she wasn’t the sort of woman to allow the men free rein over the girls in her charge. Especially men with that hollow sadness in their eyes. Clara who worked in the office had once whispered quietly that there was a reason - beyond the obvious - that Matron was still haunted by France, why she refused to talk about it openly. How many times had Stella watched Tommy suffer from his wounds, only for him to regain his strength? How many men had died of less, sheeted rows in the filth, hands slipping coldly from her grasp night and day? Strangers were painful enough, she couldn’t conceive what it would be like to linger in that filth and watch the light leave Tommy’s eyes. 

Stella had chewed into her bottom lip so thoroughly that the blood was staining her teeth, and as the bitter taste brought her out of her mind, she heard the slow rumble of a car. She drifted to the edge of the road, shoes catching a little in the earth as she watched the car advance towards her. It seemed to be going faster than it should be, and the noise grew louder and more unpleasant as it approached. From the side of the car Tommy swung into view, and she wondered if the heat had taken hold of her senses. She had only just begun to notice it, but it was searing her skin. Whether it was a vision or not, someone was shouting her name with a sense of urgency, and if it wasn’t his voice then she didn’t want to hear it. 

“Stella is that you? What the hell are you doing all the way out here?”

“Tommy...” she faltered, swaying under the glare. Her eyes were drawn to a speck at the end of the road, another car following the first, but far behind. Tommy was nearing, face incredulous as he leaned from the car and started to open the door. Then he was beside her, hands on her wrists, steadying her for a few seconds before he was pulling her into the car. She was pressed in the back against men she didn't recognise, but Tommy was stroking her face with his thumb and feeling her brow with the back of his hand as Arthur forced the car forward again. 

“How long have you been walking? You’re miles outside the city Stella, are you in trouble? Have you had anything to drink?”

The other men, some of them who seemed to be boys, stared at her with mixed expressions. Concern was among them, but she got the feeling it wasn’t solely reserved for her. The car was bellowing, and one of them was berating Arthur for the speed, mumbling about tyres. Arthur was shouting in response, dust and dirt flying, the heat just too much now. Stella felt herself slipping on the seat, and her vision blurred as her head dipped to her chest. Tommy was still firing questions at her, but there was nothing she could do, even if she had had the answers for him.

*****

There was a feather poking out of the pillow next to her face, rubbing along her cheek as she stretched and turned away from the sunshine. She reached for it instinctively, twisting it free of the cotton and yawning. Her hand found skin, and then stubble, eyes opening as her fingers stilled in surprise. Tommy met her gaze with a silent smile. She shot back a little, but smiled despite her shock.

“Tommy, what the hell? Where am I?”

“We’re at Polly’s, I thought it would be safer than my house. You fainted, yesterday, when we picked you up on the road. You’d been walking for miles Stella, why?”

He was still wearing trousers, though his shirt was unbuttoned and feet bare on the sheets. There was a book in his lap, lying open with a pen in the spine, writing filling the margins. She couldn’t read it, but it looked hasty and messy. 

“I…yesterday? No, no, I was supposed to be gone for the day, I have to-“

She started pushing back the sheets, noticing with discomfort that she was only in a slip. Had she undressed herself, or had he? 

“-There’s no point. I went to the hospital this morning and got your things. They don’t expect you back to work, though one or two of the other nurses said you should come back and say goodbye when you’re ready.”

Stella stared at him dumbly, brain trying to catch up and process the meaning of his words.

“Sorry, I, I think I misheard you.”

“You didn’t. Your clothes and books are in the cupboard, over there.”

He gestured to the corner, but Stella didn’t follow his hand.

“You mean, you got me fired? Wh-“

“-Not exactly. But Matron agreed that you had to make a choice between your work and your life, and I assured her you had. I thought it would be for the best.”

“You thought..? I was unconscious. My work is my life Tommy, always has been, how could you, how dare you…"

Her head was spinning, and the room seemed to be following suit as she tried to clamber out of the bed. She looked around wildly for her uniform but she couldn’t see it on the floor, or hanging over the chair. She’d been wearing it when she fainted, she was sure of it.

“You don’t get to make decisions like that! You swan into people’s lives and take over like everything is beneath you, and then you just expect people to deal with it. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

She nearly ripped the cupboard door from its hinges as she pulled it open. Her pristine dresses from home, the silky lilac number she had worn to dinner with him. Underwear, socks, shoes. Her books and letter were stacked neatly on a shelf above. No uniform. 

“Calm down Stella. It was Matron who suggested that you should take some time away from the job-“

“-Yes because you walked in there like I was your property, and she thought I was a lost cause.”

“Is that so wrong? We found you walking by yourself miles outside the city, looking like you’d been forcing every step, and then you fainted in the car. I didn't know what to think, but I wasn’t going to send you back into work.”

“It was your fault I was out there in the first place. You’ve done this to me Tommy, you’ve fucking ruined me.”

She thought of what Ada had said and felt her skin prickle with heat. His sister had warned her about who he was, about what he did. But it had been too late by then. Unless she’d left there and then, before he got back, hidden herself away and hoped that…

“The orphanage will be up and running in a few weeks, and you’ll have the option of getting it working with me if you want. But there are other things, as much as you may hate the idea, charity events and business deals. You’re an intelligent woman Stella, and there’s more than enough to occupy-“

She crossed to the door, fearing that Ada’s warning across the dinner table may have been the last chance that she’d had to walk away.

“To occupy me? I’m not a child Tommy, I’m not your dog. You can’t just keep me here.”

The door was locked, and she twisted the doorknob pathetically, desperate to force it but knowing that she couldn’t. Tommy watched her from the bed, a hardened expression as he lit a cigarette.

“You can’t leave Stella, not just yet.”

She turned on him, furious at being caged in like an animal. 

“Why the hell not?”

“Business has followed me home, and it’s not safe out there right now. Thanks to your theatrics on the road yesterday, there are men who associate you with me, and that’s the last thing you need at the moment.”

“Nothing could be more true. I don’t care if half the bloody country is out there waiting to strike me down Tommy, I am leaving, and I am going to the hospital and-“

She was gesticulating wildly at the locked door, face aflame and voice rising, but Tommy wouldn’t let her finish.

“Stella, there’s no point. I don’t own you, but I do as far as the hospital staff are concerned. You couldn’t work there knowing that they thought that, it would drive you mad.”

“You bastard. You’ve taken everything, haven’t you. How could you do it?”

He blew smoke, those eyes drawing at her as she lingered helplessly between the bed and the locked door. 

“Because I love you, Stella. Because I want you safe, here with me and nothing in our way. You couldn’t choose between your life and mine. I made that choice.”

She was torn between disgust and horror. Horror that he had finally said something she couldn’t pass off as meaningless, something that they couldn’t ignore. And disgust that every choice she had ever made for herself had been wiped out in one fell swoop by a man who she’d spent little more than days with. 

“You don’t love me. You wouldn’t think like that if you did.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way. I don’t want you to be unhappy.”

“Unhappy? Un-”

She sunk down onto the bed beside him, energy sapped by her rage. 

“You fucking Shelbys. What do you want me to say Tommy? That I love you?”

“Do you?”

“I can’t answer that. Not right now.”

“Okay. Do you want me to go?”

“I don’t know.”

She was crying through the words, head in her hands, and she felt the bed move as he reached a hand out to run it along her back.

“Stella.”

“I don’t know what I want anymore Tommy. I’ve never had to fight myself like this.”

He pulled her gently to face him, her legs curling to her side, her hands bunching in her slip. 

“Stop fighting.”

“Well you would say that-“

He had her face cupped in his hands, cool against her cheeks, fingers stroking her ears. For the first time since she’d met him, he looked so safe. 

“Stop fighting Stella.”

Twisting her head, she kissed the palm of his hand, lips lingering on the touch, parted in a silent sob.

“Just…say it again.”

“I love you, Stella."

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure how this one is going to play out between them. I feel like that need to exercise control and keep his loved ones safe would have pushed Tommy into doing it, but it is still a very risky move, and Stella isn't beaten yet.


End file.
